ABSTRACT

How does Gerontology cohere as an academic discipline and field of practice when increasingly other disciplines and fields are taking on issues of aging, old age and later life? What constitutes Gerontology’s purview or territory when aging is everywhere (we are all doing it) and nowhere (there are so many mixed messages and they all seem to be about others’ experiences, not our own) at the same time? As well, not only are academic disciplines and fields outside of Gerontology taking on the questions, issues and problems that have traditionally been the focus of Gerontology, but there has been a proliferation of niche services, products, businesses and marketing strategies targeted at older populations (but often with little or no grounding in gerontological knowledge). The good news: no matter what path you may follow in terms of education, career and lifelong learning, you will have ample opportunities to be in contact with, even serve, older persons, as there isn’t any area in society that doesn’t touch on, to some degree, issues of aging, later life and old age.